Title

Balloons, Fabrics and Static Electricity

Problem Scenario

This project is important because I want to know which fabric has the most static cling.

Broad Question

How long will balloons cling onto fabric?

Specific Question

How long will a balloon cling onto different fabrics: cotton, wool, fleece, nylon, or polyester?

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that that the cotton will hold the balloon for the longest.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:

Cotton, Tissue, Fleece, Silk, and Latex

Dependent Variable:

Time in seconds

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Static Electricity- Electric charge that has accumulated on an object. Static electricity is often created when two objects that are not good electrical conductors are rubbed together, and electrons from one of the objects rub off on to the other. This happens, for example, when combing one's hair or taking off a sweater. Sudden releases of built-up static electricity can take the form of an electric arc.

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General Plan

Charge a balloon with static electricity and place it onto a fabric and time (in seconds) how long the balloon clings to the fabric. Then record the time.

Potential Problems And Solution

A few problems that i ran into while doing/ putting together my project was finding and getting the balloons. Because I was not able to go somewhere and but the fabrics or balloons, I had to go ask teachers if they had anything. I had to change a few of my fabrics because other teachers didn't have the fabrics that i had planned to use on the beginning.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

In order to deal with this problem, you must plan ahead of time, where and when you are going to collect your supplies.

Experimental Design

34

Time Line

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Background Research

How do you really create static electricity? How does static electricity really work? Have you ever wondered these questions yourself? In my next few paragraphs I'm sure I will answer all of your questions.

Static electricity is an electric charge that has accumulated on an object. Static electricity is often created when two objects that are not good electrical conductors are rubbed together, and electrons from one of the objects rub off on to the other. This happens, for example, when combing one's hair or taking off a sweater. Sudden releases of built-up static electricity can take the form of an electric arc. An electric current, often strong, brief, and luminous, in which electrons jump across a gap. Electric arcs across specially designed electrodes can produce very high heat sand bright light, and are used for such purposes as welding and illumination in spotlights. Unwanted arcs in electrical circuits can cause fires. Lightning is a case of an electric arc between one cloud and the earth or an other cloud, as are sparks caused by discharges of static electricity.

In order to create static electricity you must rub and object against another object. For example, if you rub a balloon against cardboard or someone's hair, you will create static electricity. Another way to create static electricity, is if you go home and take your shoes off, and rub you feet against the carpet (make sure you have socks on) you will create static electricity between your feet and the carpet.

Which fabrics hold static electricity? All fabric can hold static electricity, except some will hold the static electricity for longer than other fabrics. For example, if you do an experiment with latex and cotton and see which fabric hold the static electricity the longest; it is most likely that that latex will hold it longer. I did an experiment with just latex, cotton, silk, fleece, and tissue and they all held static electricity, but there are many, many, MANY other fabrics hat will hold static electricty.

I hope I answered all of your questions. This experiment was really fun and hope that maybe you will try it. What fabrics will you test?

References

www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/elec_p017.shtml
www.dictionary.com
classzone.com/books/...charge/emm05_pg7_charge.html

Detailed Procedure

1. Staple all five fabrics on to the large piece of cardboard
2. Take a balloon and rub it against a small piece of cardboard
3. Put the balloon on the piece on thin fleece fabric and time it with a stopwatch
4. When the balloon falls off the fabric, record the time
5. Repeat this process five times
6. Do the same thing with the cotton fabric
7. Keep doing this with different fabrics
8. When you are done, find which fabric the balloon clung to the longest

Photo List

Latex

All Fabrics

Tissue

Fleece

Silk

Cotton

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Results

All Raw Data

Fleece	Cotton	Tissue	Silk	Latex
4	5.2	276	14.3	17.4
3	8.5	147	125	22.5
3.8	1.5	183	18.76	9.9
2.6	16	239	56	11.6
3	6	196	123	8.6

Graphs

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Data Analysis

Consistently in each trial, the balloon clung to the tissue fabric the longest. Following behind the tissue, the silk fabric held the balloon the second longest. In some trials, the silk is close behind the the tissue, while in other trials, tissue leaves silk in the dust! Coming in last place, closely behind cotton, is fleece.

Conclusion

I hypothesized that the cotton will hold the balloon the longest. I have to reject my hypothesis because my data supported that the tissue held the balloon the longest.

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Discussion

There are a variety of applications of my results for the community, for example:You may want to know which fabrics holds the most static electricity so that if you go to somewhere where you are going to be around a lot of electricity then you won't get shocked or shock yourself when you touch metal. It is also good to know which fabrics hold a lot of static electricity if you are doing a different experiment where you need to create static electricity, and so you can use those fabrics. If you are going to an event where you want to where your fleece sweater and you walking around when you see your family friend. You go in for a hug and ZZAAPP!! You get shocked by her wool sweater. That is all the doing of static electricity. While you were walking, your feet were rubbing against the floor and created static electricity and when you went to hug her, the static electricity from your sweater transferred onto her sweater. That is another reason why it is good to know which fabrics hold the most static electricity.

During my experiment I came to very little problems. The only problem I had was I didn't have my supplies on time so I had to ask borrow supplies from teachers. If you do this experiment, you may run into more troubles. For example, finding wall space to hang the cardboard with the fabrics on it on. Or you may have trouble with having your balloon cling to the fabric and not the cardboard. In order to fix these problems, you could plan ahead of time of when you are going to get your materials, do your experiment in the hall, or make your fabric bigger than the balloon.

To improve my project I would have made it more complex and measured the amount of static electricity in each fabric. I would have also used different fabrics but, as I said before, I had a limited time to get the fabrics and I didn't get the ones that I wanted. I would have also gotten a bigger piece of cardboard to use and covered it with more fabrics and ran more trials. I feel as though this would improve my experiment.

Abstract

I hypothesized that the balloon would cling to the cotton for the longest. I hypothesized wrong. The balloon really clung to the tissue for the longest. I did this project is important because I wanted to know which fabric has the most static cling. What I did for my project is, I charged my balloon with static electricity and placed it onto a fabric and timed it (in seconds) how long the balloon clings to the fabric. Then I recorded the time. I found out that the tissue fabric held the most static electricity, so the balloon clung to it the longest. I found that the fleece held the least amount of static electricity, so the balloon clung to it for the least amount of time.